I swim too far, and fly too high
by CassandraHolly
Summary: 'Dougie's face is in his arms and he's sobbing hysterically and the other three cluster even closer together around him and hold him tight, because that's all they can do.'
1. Chapter 1

Hello.

The title is a quote from the song that I listened to on repeat while writing this- i heard it and just started writing, and this was made. Go listen to it while you read if you want the full effect (Read Your Book by Soley). I literally have no inspiration for most of my stories right now, I'm sorry I'm so shit.

* * *

><p>Dougie was sleeping when the phone rang, on the morning of July the 17th, 2005.<p>

Tom was the one who had to break the news to him. Words were shattered over bed hair and sleep- fogged eyes. Tom told him, in four syllables;

_Your sister died_

and the silence that followed went on for too long and was too devastating, so he decorated it with two more-

_last night-_

and then Dougie walked away, and Tom was left sitting on the edge of the bed with the coffee and the phone and the guilt because he had just torn apart his friend with words and things might never be the same.

* * *

><p>Willow Marie Poynter was fourteen when she sliced her wrists open with a bread knife.<p>

But the cuts weren't deep enough and it took too long and so Jazzie Grace Poynter was seven when she followed the drops of blood to the basement and found her sister dangling from the metal staircase by her school tie.

Tom didn't tell Dougie this, because he didn't know it himself. None of them knew it until they took him back to the house and the tear stained, shaking woman who was once a mother of three told them.

Danny had watched as all the blood disappeared from Dougie's face, leaving skin so white it seemed impossible, and then gravity came and pulled Dougie down with it and he landed in a heap of long limbs- too long for someone so young, too young for something so awful- and he had stood and started crying himself because _since when did fourteen year old girls hang themselves in basements?_

* * *

><p>They found that out later on that day.<p>

Apparently fourteen year old girls like Willow have hung themselves in basements since they became the centre of a little universe called Depression.

There are a ot of planets in this Universe, and Willow skipped from one to the other on a rocket made of tears and pillows to scream into.

She started at Anorexia, stopped off at Bulimia and ended at Self Harm. Then she returned to Bulimia and joined the three together in a neat little package of self destruction. But she hadn't fully explored the deserts and valleys of Self Harm yet and so she went back on an extended vacation and returned home with souvenirs that decorated her arms and thighs.

Still, she wasn't done.

So she got back in the rocket and zoomed off to Underage Sex and Drugs and Drinking and Abusive Relationships.

Willow couldn't find a planet she liked, so she collected them all then _fell in to a black hole and never came out._

* * *

><p>Harry called his mother and she came and dragged Dougie's mother and remaining sister back to her house, the house she shared with her husband and Harry's very much alive little sister, Catherine, and the four boys stay in Harry's room. They are a support system and they sit on the bed with him and wait for the storm to pass. But a storm can't pass unless it's arrived and Dougie is in denial.<p>

Tom is taking him through the seven stages of grief, and Dougie is refusing to move past stage one.

Danny chews on his lip as he fiddles with Harry's pillow. Next to him, Dougie is talking too fast about his father and how they need to track him down and tell him that his daughter-

pause

_his daughter is lying in a cold, tiled room, with zig zag arms and a crinkly sheet and white white skin with a purple/red/black neck _

is dead.

There's a silence almost identical to the one Tom experienced the day before, and suddenly Dougie's face is in his arms and he's sobbing hysterically and the other three cluster even closer together around him and hold him tight, because that's all they can do.

* * *

><p>There's no one to hold Jazzie tight.<p>

She hasn't spoken in 27 hours.

She followed the white bunny (it wasn't a white bunny, though, becase it was red and it was a line of little drops punctuated by longer slithers) through the house after getting home from school (she was hungry and Jazzie was supposed to have made the pizza hot and yummy by now) down the stairs, across the hall, through the door, down more stairs- pause to pull the light switch- to the basement floor, cold and lonely and there's no one here

_but there is_

_turn around and there's a girl under the stairs and her school skirt is crumpled and her white shirt is soaked through with the red- bunny drops and her fringe hangs over her eyes but her mough is gaping and her feet aren't supposed to be dangling over the ground like that and why is she spinning around?_

Jazzie followed the red- blood bunny down the rabbit hole and found Alice, lost in a Horrorland, and now she can't talk.

* * *

><p>Dougie stares at Tom as the older boy talks to Fletch on the phone-<p>

_cheers, mate- yeah, could you get us a month? Even longer? That's great. Me and Dan can do the interviews- no, not yet. we need to stay- no, you stay there, we're good-_

and then they have a free schedule for two or three or four months (however long it takes, Doug, you take as long as you need for this) apart from the funeral which will be in a week because they need a grave stone.

Dougie watches as his mother starts crying all over again. What kind of a gravestone would a fourteen year old girl want?

Dougie doesn't know. He imagines how cliche this could have been- he could have been the older brother she told everything too and now he could pick out her flowers and her gifts and her dress because they would have been best friends- but it wasn't like that, she was just his sister, and so he stays quiet while his mother pores over dress catalogues for teenagers.

Harry's mum says she should leave it but the comment falls on deaf ears and eventually a list is drawn up that Dougie won't look at because his little sister Willow is dead and why are they thinking about dresses?

* * *

><p>It takes two days to reach the newspapers that Dougie Poynter from McFly's little sister is dead.<p>

It takes three days to reach the newspapers that Dougie Poynter from McFly's little sister committed suicide.

_she was bullied she was abused she was threatened by fans she was a slut she was an emo she was jealous of the attention her brother got you know that one in McFly he plays bass oh and did you hear about Danny Jones' girlfriend?_

_she slit her wrists no she hung herself no she overdosed no she threw herself in front of a train/car/off a cliff/off a roof/ no she drowned herself no she electrocuted herself with one of her brother Dougie from McFly's amplifier leads no she was run over by the tour bus they use hey do you think they'll ever go on tour again OhMyGod will the band split up?_

Harry's sister Catherine is being tailed by Jazzie and she hides all the tabloids that pass the threshold just in case Jazzie's first encounter with the media is the story of her big sister flinging herself on the freeway.

* * *

><p>Dougie dreams of Willow every night, of her body spinning in the basement, and he wakes up sobbing in to Harry's arms.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Tom is watching the way Harry holds Dougie.

Just because he has muscles, Tom reckons, that doesn't mean he's strong enough to hold Dougie together. It's not strength Dougie needs, it's precision and patience, and Harry doesn't own either. Instead, he's pushing himself closer to Dougie and waving his arms around in the younger boy's face in an attempt to wake him up.

Dougie doesn't want to wake up.

He's wandering around in a permanant state of slumber, caught up in his own nightmares. Tom wonders what he sees in the corners he stares at and avoids. Is it Willow? Can he see her there? Watching him, wanting him? He squints at the shadows his friend refuses to go near and tries to make out her figure, but finds nothing. Then again, you can't find something if you don't know what it looks like.

Willow's pale body is sleeping in a morgue, and it's the ugly insides that are hovering over them now. Unsaid words float through the air, secrets chew furiously at the edges of the room. Nobody speaks it aloud but they're all thinking the same questions.

_Why was she like it? How long was she like it for? How did she hide it?_

'It' varies depending on the day/question/person asking. Sometimes it's the fact that she didn't really eat as much as she should have

_'The autopsy_ _shows that she had been starving herself of food for at least three days before the suicide, probably more...'_

sometimes it's the vomiting

_'Tearing of the throat and scars on her knuckles confirm suspicions of bulimia...'_

sometimes it's the drugs

_'Not only were the signs of drug use and abuse all over her body but various items ranging fom cocaine to tobacco were found in her school bag.'_

and sometimes it's the self harm

_'... burn marks on her arms, scars from razors, knives and her nails on her arms, thighs and stomach, bruises that seem to be self inflicted covering her body... Mrs Poynter, are you aware of the fact that your daughter used household medication as a way to cope with the pain she created?'_

but it doesn't really matter what 'It' is concerning, because 'It' is all- encompassing, suffocating. How did she go to sleep at night, knowing what she was doing to herself?

She didn't, she was an insomniac.

How did she drag herself out of bed in the morning?

She didn't drag herself out, the need/want to be perfect did.

* * *

><p>Dougie listens to the policemen and reads the autopsy and smashes up Harry's old bedroom.<p>

Danny sits and watches and he's scared because if Willow is that good at hiding things, who's to say Dougie isn't better?

Danny isn't the only one with this fear. A week and four days after they begin the stay in Essex, the three bring Dougie in to Harry's bedroom and ask to see his arms.

'Just a check,' They say, 'Because we're scared for you. We care for you.'

Dougie complies, but Harry is more thorough than the other two; he checks Dougie's stomach for claw maks, his legs for cuts, his arms for bruises, his neck for cigarette burns, until Dougie looks him in the eye and says 'Harry, I'm not Willow,' and Harry stops and hugs Dougie and apologizes and they're all content that he's not ripping himself to shreds.

Just in case, Tom bins all the medication Hary's parent's own.

They don't question it.

* * *

><p><em>Meanwhile, Jazzie's got a knife in her Hello Kitty backpack.<em>

* * *

><p>Dougie's mum's house is given the all clear and a new question is formed.<p>

'Are we going back?'

Harry's mum says wait a while. Dougie's mum says but I want to go now. Tom says let the ground settle. Dougie says it was a suicide, not a war. Jazzie says I want my night light. Dougie's mum says we're going back tomorrow. Harry's mum says a week. Dougie's mum says three days. They make a deal and seal it with tea and rich tea biscuits, and Dougie doesn't know where he's supposed to be going or what he's supposed to be doing.

* * *

><p>Three days pass and they're standing outside the house- Harry's mum, Dougie's mum, Dougie, the three bandmates who haven't left his side thus far, and Jazzie. Harry's dad is bringing the bags up the path.<p>

It's a ghost house.

There's a fourteen year old crazygirl waiting with a knife on the other side of the door. But then Danny goes in and nothing bad happens (apart from him kicking over the shoe stand by accident but that's Danny) and everything's fine.

Nobody touches the basement door.

* * *

><p>It's eventually decided that Danny and Tom will go back to the band house, Harry will go back to his parents', and Dougie will stay in the ghost house. Just for a while, they agree. Long enough so that<p>

_they can ascertain that Dougie hasn't crossed to the crazy side_

Dougie can be with his family and get through the trauma, and short enough so that

_he doesn't go mad in that fucking house and kill himself just like she did_

he doesn't miss his friends too much.

* * *

><p>Dougie's mother doesn't sleep the first night back.<p>

She walks down the stairs that Willow walked _there's blood stains on the carpet_ and across the hall _were her wrists hurting her too much _and stands by the basment door _this was the last door she walked though _and opens it _what was she thinking when she walked through here _and down the stairs _did she have second thoughts _and stands in the middle of the cold room _was she scared _and turns

and screams

and doesn't stop

because they didn't take away the school tie, and it's still hanging there, grey-and-blue-and-death, and if she squints she _can see a girl hangingturningstrugglingdying_

* * *

><p>Jazzie is a little girl with little girl strawberry shampoo and little girl soft skin and echoes of little girl baby fat <em>and little girl cuts on her legs.<em>


	3. Chapter 3

They're not allowed to have the funeral at the church, because suicide is a sin.

The local priest talks about the reputation of the church, bullshit spewing from his mouth. He's a fucking hypocrite, and Dougie wants to smack his nose in to the back of his holy skull but Harry leads him away.

Suicide is a sin, and Willow is destined for Hell.

That's probably why she's hanging around here, Tom thinks. Because she's scared of whatever's waiting for her. But really, it can't be worse than what she went through up here.

* * *

><p>Danny doesn't understand why the police are still here. He sits in front of the T.V at Dougie's house and asks outright, and Dougie enlightens him.<p>

"Willow was breaking laws like a prostitute sucks dicks," He says flatly. Pauses, and smirks slightly. "And she was doing that, too."

They've forgotten how to be shocked at the way he talks about her. It's a coping mechanism, Tom's mum told them, so they bite their lips and listen to the cruel voice coming from kind lips. Dougie looks at Danny. "She was a druggie, she had sex with at least seven guys, she stole shit and she got in fights. The cops are trying to figure out if it was just her, or if the whole family is living on the flipped side."

* * *

><p>Jazzie is dancing on the line between sanity and complete craziness.<p>

Seven is a young age to be insane but she's nearly doing it. The line is a razor cut and her dancing shoes are made of the skin she's shedding- all twelve pounds of it.

Dougie's mum doesn't see because she's blinded by grief and Dougie doesn't see because he's too busy looking at his nightmares but Tom sees. Little sister number one was a screw up and her machinery was wired the wrong way so they scrapped her and turned to the back- up. But little sister number two's batteries are running down and she's falling to pieces. Tom stares at her as she sits in the corner of the living room with her colouring book and pencils, tongue sticking out in concentration as she colours within the lines. Her own lines are blurred and shady. She looks up and Tom gets a glimpse of hollow cheeks and wide eyes, dead eyes, before she returns her gaze to the picture she's colouring in.

It's a picture of a balloon, surrounded by clouds and sun. If you turn your head and squint, as Tom does, you can see the girl scrawled in at the bottom, the girl hanging by her neck from the string of the balloon.

Jazzie sees his shock and snaps the book shut. She stands and stalks out, leaving behind her a scent of childhood and crayons and hipbones that should _not be that defined_

Jazzie is not okay.

* * *

><p>The police give up on the Poynter family. This means no more questions and suspicions but it also means no more inquiry in to Willow's death and no culprits.<p>

"There's no question," They said, "Her fingerprints were on the knife, the school tie, the drugs in her room. All evidence points towards a hard life and suicide."

A messy life followed by a messy death. So messy, the blood stains on the carpet won't come out. Dougie wants a new carpet. Sam told him that if blood on the carpet was the only memory she had of her daughter then blood it would be. Dougie told her it was sick. Sam told him to fuck off back to the band house. They cried in each other's arms in the living room as Jazzie sat on the stairs and ran her fingers around the biggest patch of blood, the same size as her hand. She wondered exactly how deep Willow sliced her wrists for it to bleed that much. Closing her eyes, Jazzie returns to the night in the basement, focuses her memory-vision on the thin wrists lying limp against the school skirt.

Very deep- and down her arms, instead of across. Jazzie retains this detail and applies it to her next little session with the knife hidden in her Hello Kitty backpack. She gets blood on Badtzu the Penguin's nose and cries.

She can feel Willow in the cuts on her legs.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry wants to be able to love Dougie without feeling like he's taking advantage of the boy.

Tom wants Harry to leave off holding Dougie so much until Dougie is stable enough to make his own decisions.

Danny wants Tom to keep out of it because if Harry kissing Dougie will make Dougie alive then Harry can do whatever the fuck he likes with his lips.

Dougie wants to remember what it feels like to look at someone and feel like they're not a million miles away.

Jazzie wants a chocolate biscuit.

Mummy, she says, I want a chocolate biscuit, but Mummy is sitting at the kitchen table with empty bottles in front of her

_Ten green bottles, sitting on the wall_

Mummy, Jazzie repeats, but Mummy seems to have well and truly passed the point of no return and so Jazzie climbs up on to the kitchen counter, reaches for the blue and pink tin

_Ten green bottles, sitting on the wall_

but her arms aren't long enough and she reaches further and there's a puddle of alcohol on the surface and she stays silent as she slips

_But if one green bottle should accidentally fall_

and stands back up and stumbles back up to her room with bleeding knees and a bruise on her face and no Mummy but it doesn't matter really,

_There'll be nine green bottles, sitting on the wall._

because she didn't deserve the biscuit anyway, because she is fat.

* * *

><p>Tom's stomach is filled with that feeling of dread he's come to associate with the Poynter household as he knocks on the door. There's no answer, why doesn't that surprise him? Because Dougie will be sitting in the shower and Dougie's mum will be drunk in the back garden and Jazzie will be God knows where doing God knows what. So Tom walks in and wipes his feet and doesn't look at the stains on the carpet as he makes his way to the bathroom.<p>

He's right, the shower is on, and that wouldn't faze him normally but the steam floating up from the door is steam that doesn't appear unless water is scalding so he kicks open the locked door and wrenches open the curtain. And Dougie is sat, knees under his chin, skin bright red, claw marks in his shoulders, and Tom is sweating from the heat.

He doesn't waste time as he hauls Dougie up and out, wrapping a towel roughly round his shoulders and pushing him back to his bedroom. Dougie complies, partly because he's so fucking tired and partly because he's scared when Tom looks so angry. Dougie falls face first on his bed and doesn't move and Tom sits next to him and stares down at his soaking wet, bright red friend.

"What the fuck are you trying to do?"

Dougie briefly considers explaining that he was trying to melt himself down the plughole but figures that won't sit well with his friend so replies, 'Taking a shower,' and Tom starts crying.

And that's not right.

Dougie is supposed to be crying, not Tom.

Tom's sister isn't dead. In fact, Tom's sister is on her way to a life much like her brother's- fame, fortune and fans- because she's a singer and an actress and a ball of personality and ambition and there is no way she's going to be hanging herself any time soon. So Dougie doesn't know what to do now because what _does _one do when one's friend is crying for no reason?

Tom says, 'I don't want you to kill yourself.'

Dougie says, 'I can't.'

Tom looks up, eyes red and bloodshot. 'Can't?' He echoes unsurely.

Dougie nods, repeats himself; 'Can't.'

'Why can't you?'

Dougie is lost now, unsure what Tom means. 'I wouldn't know how.' He says slowly, and then Tom goes pale and he attempts to salvage the situation by ending with 'I think you need to have energy to kill yourself and all I want to do is sleep.'

And Tom swears and puts his head in his hands and sobs more because Dougie won't kill himself- but it's not because he doesn't want to. It's because he can't be bothered.

And Tom thinks, what happens when he gets the energy back?

Because he really doesn't want to be the one who finds the cold, lifeless body of his littlest friend.


	5. Chapter 5

Dougie's purple bass is gathering dust in the corner of the living room.

Danny's red eyes are gathering bags on the sofa in the living room.

He doesn't sleep anymore, not since Tom told him Dougie was going down the same road as his sister. He's waiting for the phone call from the police announcing Dougie's death.

He doesn't tell Tom this. He tells Tom he's having a creative streak and songs are pouring out 24/7. This is a lie not even worth arguing because the lyric book is in the same place as it was the week Willow kicked the bucket and spilled the shitty water of _her_ life all over the carpet of _theirs_. But Tom doesn't press it because he gets the same fucked up dreams as Danny.

He also avoids the subject of the empty Monster cans covering every surface of the house, and refrains from telling Danny that if you want to stay up, coffee is a better source of nightmare avoidance.

* * *

><p>Harry finds the burnt remains of the newspapers in the Poynter's fireplace and questions Dougie's mum about it.<p>

She shrugs and drowns Harry's concern out with alcohol.

Harry asks Dougie with great trepidation because God knows what could set him off in a tempter tangent these days.

Dougie shrugs and lights another cigarette.

Finally, Harry asks Jazzie because she seems to have a talent for noticing things that others don't.

She looks at him and says, 'They all lied about Willow so I burned them to death.'

Harry pats her head and backs away and calls Tom. Tom, he says, This little girl is _not okay._

Tom replies, What can we do about it?

Harry falls silent and realises they can't _do _anything. They can't look out for Dougie's little sister because she's just like her older siblings are/were. She makes little piles of secrets and hides them in creative places for nobody to find until it's too late.

Harry returns to Dougie and tries to connect (Talk to me. No. Why? I don't want to. Why not? FuckoffHarry. Please talk to me. FuckOFFHarry. _Please. _FUCKOFFHARRY.) but gives up and kisses him instead.

Later that night, he goes to a bar and gets in a fight so he can feel the pain he deserves for being such a manipulative bastard.

Dougie didn't kiss him back.

Dougie stayed still until Harry backed off, and then he curled up under his covers and screamed in to a pillow.

* * *

><p>Jazzie doesn't tell anybody that she's going back to school. She packs her school bag like so:<p>

- Hello Kitty pen and pencil set

- Iggle Piggle notebook

- Box of orange tic- tacs (only one and a half calories per tic- tac!)

- Razor blade wrapped in tissue paper

and sets off on the half mile walk.

The teachers stare at her with wide eyes. Smile, nod, 'Lovely to see you, Jazzie, does your mummy know you're here?' No. 'Should she know, do you think?' No. 'Why not?' She's pissed out of her goddamn mind.

They call Dougie's mum.

No answer. Dougie's mum is blacked out on the kitchen floor.

They call the police.

The police arrive and take Jazzie home in a car with a flashy light. Jazzie stares at the Mr Policeman with pursed lips when he suggests they turn the lights on. She is too old for such frivolous delights. She is not a child. She is a young adult and Mr Policeman is a fucking idiot.

She says as much and Mr Policeman goes quiet.

Jazzie likes quiet, and she settles back and allows herself a small smile. She catches a glance of her face in the rearview mirror.

I look like Willow, she decides.

* * *

><p>When she arrives home, Dougie answers the door. He brings Jazzie in. He asks what the hell she thinks she's playing at.<p>

I'm being grown up, she shrieks, in a rather age- appropriate temper tantrum.

Leave me alone, she hollers.

I'm being Willow, she yells.

Like hell you are, he snaps. You don't even know how to do your shoelaces up, let alone tie a noose with a fucking school tie.

After he returns to his room, Jazzie teaches herself how to tie her shoelaces.


	6. Chapter 6

"You did _what_?"

Harry's torso is bruised, he's missing a tooth, and his left eye is a shocking shade of magenta, but it isn't enough. He took advantage of Dougie, and now he needs to pay the price. The price, as he well knows, is high.

Danny's punches are worth a hundred pounds, almost as much as the weight put behind them.

"I kissed him," Harry said flatly, "And he screamed."

Tom is there as well, because his quiet anger is almost as painful as Danny's blows. "What did you do then?" he asks, hands clenching and unclenching.

Harry shrugs one shoulder, raises one eyebrow, goes for the maximum 'I don't care' display. "I walked away."

He should be an actor. Danny really thinks he doesn't give a damn, and suddenly Harry is on his four feet away. Tom doesn't move. He's a peacemaker, but he's not a saint.

"You dick," Danny snarls, stalking towards Harry with eyes glinting. "You- you _shit_." He is too angry for words, but actions speak a million of those. The last thing Harry thinks before he blacks out is that his price is probably well paid.

* * *

><p>Jazzie can now successfully tie her shoelaces.<p>

She is moving on to bigger and better things; Dougie's old school tie was in the airing cupboard.

* * *

><p>"I need to talk to you."<p>

Tom looks up and nearly faints, because it's Dougie, and Dougie hasn't initiated conversation in a very long time. "O- of course. Are you okay?"

Dougie stares at Tom. Tom waits for the ground to swallow him up. "You're not okay. Duh. Sorry. What can I do?"

"Tell me the truth about Harry." Dougie shifts his weight from one foot to the other, looking like a stranger in his own house.

Tom tells him that Harry is upset because Dougie is upset. He says that things are confusing for everybody right now. Harry is trying to find his way to cope, like all of them.

"Where is he?"

Tom says that he's in the hospital, but doesn't remember to tell Dougie why until the younger boy is a shaking mess on the floor. "Shit, no, he's not- Dougs, Dougie, he's not de- he's not _dea-_"

* * *

><p>"I love him, Danny."<p>

Danny sits as far away from Harry as the cramped X-ray scan room will allow. "Shut your fucking trap."

"I love him."

"Seriously, I will kill you. Actually kill you dead."

"Why?"

"You _can't _love him! He's _fucked up_!"

* * *

><p>Harry waits until Tom and Danny are back at Tom's house before he lets himself in to the Poynter household. It's dark, because it is eleven at night and the sun made it's escape a good few hours ago. He doesn't turn on the light. He's sick of seeing those awful stains on the carpet.<p>

The plan is simple. Go in. Tell Dougie you love him, you'll wait, get out. Not complicated, Juddy, you can do this. Don't mess this up. Don't mess him up.

Not complicated? Shouldn't be complicated. Wouldn't have been complicated, except that the basement door was open, and there was a single, fresh blood stain on the stairs, and a coloring book laying face- open in the doorway.


	7. Chapter 7

So, this is how it happens.

Harry sprints to the basement door, flings it open, skips a few steps and lands on his arse at the bottom.  
>Jumps up, spins around, swears to <em>God <em>that Willow is there spinning in the air, but no she's_ not_ it's _Jazzie _little 7 year old _Jazzie _and she's not-

She's not dead.

Well, that's good then.

'Jazzie,' Harry croaks, 'What- the blood- the floor- what-'

The relief and fear are mingling, relief that the remaining three members of the Poynter family are still- well, _breathing_- and that's when Jazzie looks up from her folded lap and holds out her wrists.

Her seven year old wrists.

Her slashed, bleeding, crimson, seven year old wrists.

Somewhere in the back of Harry's head, there is a voice saying _and this is what you imagined, finding a dying girl, right, you dreamed of saving her life and being Dougie's hero after you told the story of how you lifted her out of the noose and stopped the bleeding and got her to the hospital_

This isn't Willow.

This isn't a circumstance in which Harry has the time to regret what he potentially could have, but didn't, do.

This is Jazzie.

Harry grabs her by the waist and lifts her to his chest, and god _damn _she's lost weight, and runs back up the stairs, and then there's Dougie.

Dougie.

He's stood by the front door, his face completely ambivalent, gazing at Harry and Jazzie.

Then he stumbles.

Then he falls.

Then he says 'I'm drunk. Also, I have many, many pills in my stomach.'

Harry blinks.

Harry wants to hit something.

'Oh, you are fucking _kidding _me,' he snarls, and grabs Dougie by one arm to pull him up. 'You. With me. _Now. I said _now, _don't _make me _slap you_, Poynter-'

The sight of Harry Judd stomping to his car with a seven year old slung over his shoulder and an absolutely plastered 18 year old stumbling along behind should have been comical, except it really wasn't.

* * *

><p>Danny wakes up at 3:a.m to the dulcet tones of Metallica- he's almost entirely sure that's his ringtone, back from when Harry changed it every day for a lark- and promptly falls back asleep.<p>

He is awoken, again, five minutes later, by Tom bashing him over the head with a book. 'Wake _up,_ you _twat, _Dougie's _drunk _and Jazzie's _dying_.'

Danny blinks, rubs his eyes, blinks some more, and then nearly falls out of bed as the reality of what Tom is saying hits him. '_Dying_?'

'She tried to k- she fucking slit her wrists, we have to go, now now now, go go fucking _go_.'

So they go.

* * *

><p>When they arrive, Harry is doing the stereotypical stalking-round-waiting-room thing, so Tom and Danny do the stereotypical run-to-nurse-and-ask-what-the-<em>hell<em>-is-happening thing. They find out that Dougie is having his stomach pumped and Jazzie is being sewed back together.

'How much did he _drink_?'

'Half a litre of vodka.'

Danny and Tom look at each other, then at Harry (who hasn't stopped stalking yet), then back at the on-call nurse.

'No. He never drinks that much. _Never. _He doesn't even _drink _vodka-'

'We found the bottle in his house.'

'His- his _house_?'

'A seven year old girl tried to kill herself, Mr Jones, of course we did a search a-'

'_How do you know my name?'_

Tom resisted the urge to murder his friend, and turned to Harry. 'Sam?'

'She's blacked out.'

'What did he take?'

'Aspirin. A lot of aspirin.' The nurse sighed. 'Look, I'm not even supposed to be telling you all this, you're not related, but I have to know about Jazzie. She's the priority here.'

And this is how ¾ of McFly ended up admitting that they watched Jazzie fall apart and didn't try and help her, while the remaining ¼ has a tube lodged down this throat, and his little sister almost dies.

* * *

><p>Dougie wakes up to the sight of Harry's face inches from his nose. Just for a moment, he forgets the last few months and it's good, but then it all comes crashing back like a tidal wave, leaving him drowning again.<p>

Well, apart from anything after yesterday afternoon, when he gave up on the glass and drank it all from the bottle.

But he's laying in a hospital, and his throat hurts, so it can't have been good.

'What happened?' Although he doesn't particularly care. Harry just _looks_ at him, and Dougie tries to ignore the niggling feeling that this is more than the fallout of a drunken blackout.

And this is how 1/2 of Mcfly end up sat together in A&E, and Harry felt exactly how Tom had felt that day- because things don't get much worse than having to tell your best friend that he might have no sisters left.


End file.
